I've worked inside InDesign so I can comment.

First, there is a system-provided call on the Mac for shortcuts, but there is a different one (I'm sure) for Windows which probably works in its own way. The InDesign developers needed a cross-platform implementation, so they wrote their own.

Menu shortcut keys aren't just menu shortcut keys. They are actually optional key shortcuts for any "action". Menu items are "actions", as are tool selections, and many other things.

I just want to defend InDesign. The way it does things isn't totally insane. Just a bit crazy.

InDesign has a shortcut key editor that you should be using anyway for changing shortcut keys.

BTW, I thought that any value > than the number of items in the menu was valid for "at the end" for InsertMenuItemText(). See http://lists.apple.com/archives/carbon-development/2003/Feb/22/alwaysinsertingmenuitems.001.txt for reference.

That reminds me of 4D 3.0. It patched almost the entire event manager to do its multi-tasking instead of using the thread manager. It even provided API calls to remove and reinstall its patches, which I had to call before and after every event manager call I made from an external.

Mmm... as mentioned above, Indesign -> Edit -> Keyboard Shortcuts... allows the user to change them already. Not as elegantly as Menu Master, of course, but there you go. Adobe even provides a couple of pre-configured sets for people already used to Quark or Photoshop, etc. It's not the end of the world if you just add this one to your Exclude App... list. You can always point out in your setup that InDesign already has its own shortcuts editor (as does MS Word, FWIW).

The really fun thing about Adobe's X products is that they all use some weird shortcut key approach that sometimes can totally get broken. It has happened on my work machine more than once. Evidently, based on a troubleshooting hint on Adobe's website, if some key command thing doesn't load properly during system startup command, option, etc key commands will not function. You have to restart for them to function again. Adobe points the finger at the OS, but it is odd to me that their programs are the only ones that seem to be affected.

I just want to respond to Fred's comment. I use InDesign and have set up the shortcut keys using its built-in editor. It's flaky at best. If you quit the app, go into the application's folder, open up the plugins folder, add or remove a plugin, then start up InDesign again, it will invariably 'forget' your palette locations, shortcuts, open recent items list, and more. Now you're back into the keyboard shortcuts reassigning keys all over again and setting up your workspace to your liking. I was really hoping that menu master would be the answer to this odd behavior, and I still hope it will be. I use InDesign exclusively, so I know about all of its odd little quirks. Have even reinstalled InDesign a couple of times just to see if that would help. It didn't. So please Slava, keep pluggin away. I'm depending on you! Thanks.